More explosions and a rattle of gunfire. Jones tried to estimate if the fighting was getting closer.
“You look restless, Jones. Try to relax. You’re burning up energy for nothing.”
“I admit I’m not used to being unable to influence events.”
“We’re quite a contrast, aren’t we, Jones? You, utterly powerless. Me with all the power in the world. Literally, I suppose. Fancy that.”
“Yes, what an irony.” He muttered, “I just hope you’re on the ball, Captain Bob.”
Phillips and Grady huddled in foliage not far from the fence. Lights flared, and Phillips, feeling very exposed, could hear shouting coming from within the camp, and sporadic shooting from around the boundary.
“All right, Sergeant Grady, time for a spot of infil.”
“Got you, Captain.”
They crept forward, Phillips leading the way.
Phillips said, “Hm. Your GIs are dug in just behind the fence.”
“Machine gun positions?”
“Yes. Also snipers on the rooftops.”
“Probably more emplacements behind that first line of buildings, and inside too. Our guys are well trained, sir.”
“I can see that. And they’re going to be tough to root out. Well, let’s try a little transatlantic diplomacy. Pass me the loudhailer.” He clicked it on. “My name is Captain Robert Phillips, British Army. I’m speaking to c-in-c, Aldmoor base.” Light splashed over them, and they ducked into what cover the uneven ground offered. “Gosh, that’s blinding.”
An American voice came drifting from a tannoy. “Back away with your hands up. Any incursion within fifty yards of the fence will be met with lethal force.”
Phillips lifted the loudhailer. “Yes, but look here. I have orders from Brigadier General Deke Worthington of the Seventh US Army, who is at SHAPE, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe. Now, you know that name very well, don’t you?”
A single gunshot cracked.
Phillips ducked again. “Yikes.”
“If he’d wanted to take your head off he would have done so, sir.”
“Well, I’m aware of that, Sergeant. And I’m also aware that they are following standing orders precisely.”
“Yeah. If their comms go down they have to assume that they are isolated in enemy-held territory. For all they know Britain has been overrun by the Russkies.”
“In their shoes I’d be doing exactly the same thing. Which doesn’t help sort this mess out, does it, Sergeant? Come on. Let’s fall back and consider our options.”
Inside the army tent, Tremayne followed where he was led, as if stunned, his tweed jacket scuffed, a bruise developing on his forehead, his white hair a halo around his head. “I let everybody down, you see? Jones was right. My arrogance led me into this. I always was the smart little boy who knew better than everybody else…”
Winston said to Thelma, “Clare says he’s been like this since the bunker. Over and over. It’s frustrating. Well, the answer’s in this rucksack—I know it is.” He began pulling stuff out of the rucksack.
Tremayne was distracted. “Why have you got a bag full of toilet rolls, boy? What are you, some kind of spiv? Had enough of your type in wartime.”
Thelma said, “No, Professor. Nothing like that. Look. This is data. Seismometer output. All dated, labeled, and calibrated, see?”
Tremayne inspected it. “Good Lord. So it is. I’ve never seen anything like it. And you produced this—what was your name?”
“Winston, sir. Winston Stubbins. Do you remember—we met at the gate—?”
“You made some dire warnings, didn’t you? And I gave you rather short shrift.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does. You were right, and I was wrong, in my foolish arrogance—”
Thelma said, “That’s enough of that. Professor Tremayne, we need your help.”
“My help. What use am I?”
“Jones wants us to analyse all this, together with the data from the base’s instruments—”
“Impossible. Look around you, woman. We’re in a tent! We’ve no computer. No power if we had one. How can we achieve any sort of meaningful analysis in these circumstances?”
Winston said, “Oh, it’s hopeless. He’s just giving up.”
Thelma said, “Hush, Winston. Ah, but that’s the challenge. Come on, Professor. Engage with the puzzle. Think about the prize—communicating with an alien life form! What’s the first step?”
Tremayne snapped, “Calculating machines.”
“Calculating machines?”
“Lots of them. And people to work them. That’s the way to do it. If you can sort that out for me, ah—”
“Thelma. Thelma Bennet.”
“Jones spoke well of you, Miss Bennet. Also we’ll need the data from the base, of course. You can fetch that from the backup record store outside the fence. Meanwhile you, boy, help me sort out all this data, by date and location to begin with. Well, come on! What are you waiting for?”
Winston said, “Yes, sir!”
Thelma said, “Glad to have you with us, Professor.”
“You still here? Get on with it, woman!”
“Godwin—have you thought this through? What if you do defeat the Magmoids? It’s absurd—but what if you did? What then?”
“Oh, there’s plenty more to do.”
“Like what?”
“A reordering of the Earth. Take China, for example. Vastly overpopulated, but all those warm bodies make it formidable. Immense industries, enormous armies, and so forth.”
“So?”
“So, a little radiological reconstruction would sort that out. A string of cobalt bombs, for example, across North China. A blanket of heavy-particle fallout. Two hundred megadeaths, maybe three.”
“ ‘Megadeaths.’ Millions of deaths?”
“And then there’s Russia.”
“Ah, of course.”
“Now with the Russians you have a different problem. There you have a highly industrialised nation. What you want to do with them is to take them back to the Middle Ages.”
“Cobalt bombs again?”
“Clinical strikes against the cities and the industrial belts. Let the next generation grow up knowing nothing but tools of stone and wood. They’d soon forget they were ever civilised. This isn’t warfare, Jones. It’s corrective surgery.”
“What a visionary you are.”
“But you see that vision. Jones, we’re alike, you and I—like it or not.”
Thelma found Clare at a field kitchen.
Clare said, “This army tea is worse than in a cop shop, and that’s saying something.”
“Phillips pumped you dry, I imagine.”
“Told them all I knew. Layout of Godwin’s command centre—all that was said in there. I think they’re getting ready for some kind of operation against the base.”
“Good. Well, finish your cuppa. We’ve got work to do.”
“Okay. What?”
“Calculating machines. It’s for this analysis project of Jones’s. We don’t have computers, but Tremayne says hand-cranked calculators will do.”
“Hmm. That’s not so hard. The post offices have them, for instance. I can put out a call. What’s trickier will be getting people to work them.”
“I hadn’t thought of that—oh.”
“What?”
“It so happens I know just where we can find plenty of office workers. The refugee camps on the main roads, where half the population of Newcastle is spending the night. We’ll find all the girls we need there. We’ll need a truck or two, I suppose.”
“I can organise that too.”
“Thank you…” Thelma studied Clare, who stood cradling her tea, her police uniform scuffed and stained, her face streaked with mud and blood. “You know, Clare—you don’t question, you don’t complain, you just get on with it, whatever’s thrown at you. I do so admire that.”